As long as she's still breathing
by PenguinofProse
Summary: An alternative (and very Bellarke) path from the end of Season 5 through Season 6.


**a/n Hello and welcome! Please enjoy this alternative journey through the end of Season 5 and then into Season 6. Happy reading!**

As he rushes towards the door of the transport ship and feels his life fall apart around his ears, Bellamy wonders where it all went wrong. When his mother had a second child? When he stowed away on a dropship bound for a hostile planet? When he returned to that planet for a second time and found that there were, in fact, _two_ people alive with whom he was rather in love? And then he betrayed one of them, the woman he used to think was one half of his soul, who sacrificed herself for him and somehow lived to tell the tale. And he left her – which in itself was bad enough – and he left her for longer than he should have done, and returned to her too late, in the middle of a crisis, with no time to sit around and worry about reconciliation. Probably, he thinks, if they landed under different circumstances, he wouldn't have given the flame to Madi. And, maybe, they'd have had some beautiful reunion, in which Echo and his complicated love for her would have faded gracefully into the background, and he could have told Clarke that every breath hurt while she was dead to him. The countdown is drumming in his ears – or perhaps that is his own heartbeat – and all he can think of is a list of regrets longer than his arm. Longer, probably, than the six years that lie between them.

He's scared. Because his sister is beyond _gone_ and his friends are minutes away from death and the world is ending again, with him and Clarke stuck on different pages and not together to face it.

But then a child, with whom his acquaintance barely extends beyond the fact that she has served as yet another wedge between him and Clarke, tells him about a radio. And suddenly the world makes a little bit more sense.

There is, he tells himself, always hope. As long as she's still breathing.

…...

So there's hope – this much he has established – but now he's not sure what his next step is as he stands around on the ship waiting for something useful to do. He finds himself thinking that hope is all very well, but really he'd like something a little more concrete to hold on to. Her hand, perhaps, or that golden braid he remembers from the worst day of his life. Her hair is different now, and of course that's a completely silly thing to worry about, but he's stuck on it all the same. Somehow it makes him feel like she's not who she was when he first fell for her. Like she's not who she was when he last saw her, the _real_ her, the her from before.

Then again, he thinks, as he rubs a hand over his chin, he's not quite the same either.

Hope is no good without action, he decides, so he invites her to the bridge to decide the fate of the human race, because that's where the old Clarke would have been. The Clarke he understood. The old Bellamy wouldn't have had to invite her, he catches himself thinking. They'd just have showed up together. But this Clarke seems almost frightened of him, of his new family, and rather scared to invite herself into their presence, and he needs to help her along with that. They aren't going to get far if she won't even spend time with him. Besides which, he knows, he will breathe a little easier knowing she's still helping to make the decisions.

Unfortunately rather a lot of his friends seem intent on making it quite clear that they do not feel the same way, that they have no interest in forgiving the commander of death in this lifetime nor the next.

…...

There is a conversation to be had before he takes his long nap. It may only have been a matter of hours since Madi told him about those radio calls, but he is sure that his mind is made up. This is one decision he does not need to sleep on. He doesn't know whether he and Clarke will ever be everything he once dreamed of, but he knows that he'll never forgive himself if he doesn't give them a chance.

"Echo."

"Bellamy."

"We need to talk. I don't know how to say this."

"So much for _nothing will change on the ground_. I get it. You didn't know she was still alive."

"It's that obvious?"

"I watched you mourn her for _years_, remember? I can't be angry about losing you to her when really you were hers all along."

"I don't think it's as simple as that, Echo. She's changed. She _left_ me. But of course I left her first."

"You should have seen the look on her face when she realised you hadn't died in that pit. It might not be _simple_, but you'll get there."

"I hope so." He says, but suddenly it seems that his hope might at least be built on something.

…...

He is less disorientated than he ought to be when he awakes, because she is there, and that is all he will ever need to get his bearings. The stranger who turns out to be Monty and Harper's child, that's a development, and the grief and the hundred and twenty five years lie heavy in his heart, but somehow everything is more bearable with Clarke by his side, back where she belongs, leaning into his shoulder as he reaches his arm around her. It takes everything that is in him not to break down and weep against her for the friends they have lost without saying goodbye, the home they will never return to, the years they have spent standing _not_ together like this, but he contents himself with feeling the living warmth of her skin beneath his palm and the movement of her shoulders as they rise and fall with every breath.

He takes Monty's message to heart – as he takes everything, even after Clarke's last instruction to him – and resolves that he will do better. He will do better at peace and prosperity. He will do better at using his head along with his heart.

He will do better at reconciliation and rediscovery.

His resolution lasts about as long as it takes to get to the ground and for the divisions in the group to show their faces. He curses himself for leaving it at _don't fall behind_, but at least that's something approaching a show of concern. Nothing compares to the shame he feels as they sit on that beach, a polite distance apart, and he listens to the others rip her to shreds without saying so much as a word in her defence. It physically hurts to see her run through that radiation shield, a reminder of the years they spent apart, to rescue a man who has done nothing but insult her for their entire acquaintance. He is sick to his stomach of watching her put every other member of the human race above herself.

…...

She doesn't ask him about the breakup, even as they wander around this strange village investigating, him and Echo rather polite, for all that they remain friends. Clarke seems to be putting a great deal of effort into being completely unobservant, but he feels that he needs her to know. All the same, if she wants to pretend it's none of her business, he decides he ought to at least try to play along.

"Funny isn't it, how Emori and Murphy have found their way back to each other?" He comments with a gesture at the pair of them. OK, perhaps he could have been more subtle than that. But he does need her to see that, in fact, it is possible for even the most broken of relationships to grow back together again. "Just as Echo and I have broken up, as well."

"Hmm." It is almost a grunt, making it clear that she doesn't much fancy this topic of conversation.

"They seem really happy." He continues determinedly, and she must catch something of the distinct lack of joy in his voice.

"I'm sorry you're not." She says, tone brimming with honesty as she finally turns and catches his eye.

"I'm fine." He tells her firmly. "It was the right decision. Things change." He wonders, perhaps, if this is the moment for pursuing this further, telling her that _her still breathing_ is what has changed.

"Yes." She agrees abruptly and so bitterly that he doesn't bother. He simply watches her retreating back and resolves that he needs to do better at doing better.

…...

Eventually he convinces himself to follow her inside and continue to spin some of those conversational threads, see if there is any chance that he can weave together a little progress.

He tells her that he knows about the radio calls, and waits for her reaction. She looks uncomfortable to say the least as she attempts to explain herself. He wants so badly to wrap her in his arms, to tell her that he understands, to tell her that he spoke to her far more often than his crewmates ever realised – which is surely even more pathetic, given he didn't even have a radio and thought she was dead. He just used to find himself talking to her, almost instinctively, and then he would feel the pain of her loss all over again.

Pathetic. That's the word he goes for in the end. He hopes it will come across as teasing, that he might start to steer them back towards the carefree affection they used to share, but he can see his mistake the moment she flares up in response.

"Pathetic? _Pathetic_?" She is suddenly angry with him, and when he thinks about it, he can rather see why. He didn't mean to belittle her years of loneliness and isolation with his ill thought-out attempt at humour. "I looked forward to you coming back for_ five years_. I dreamed every night about how that sentence, that _if I never see you again_ might end. And then you were a year late and I looked forward _even more_. And then you landed, but you never came back, not really." She's crying now, properly sobbing, tears running unchecked down her cheeks as she sucks in shuddering, heaving breaths.

He starts speaking – to say what, he's not quite sure, but he only knows that he ought to say something in response to that, ought to tell her at least that he missed her too, that he will come back for real, one day. That _if I never see you again_ ended exactly how she hoped and wished and dreamed. But before he's got further than a sort of strangled hiccup she interrupts him and continues.

"I'm beginning to think that this would all be much simpler if I'd just died when I was supposed to." She flaps her arms in a way that somehow encompasses him and the village and her hostile former friends.

"No! No. Please, Clarke, don't say that. That moment when Madi ran out of the trees and told me you were still alive..." He trails off in tears of his own, wondering what words there can possibly be to express the way the six-year-old knot in his chest loosened at the news. "All I can say is I know a world where you're alive is better than one where you're dead. As for the rest of it, for forgiveness and everything else – we'll work that out. We always do."

She snorts at that. "Things change." She tells him, repeating his earlier words back at him, but he forces himself to be patient and honest and _do better_.

"Yes, but I still have hope. As long as you're still breathing."

She softens a little at that, and dashes the tears away from her eyes, and offers him a rather feeble smile before she goes outside to join the others, leaving him alone with his thoughts and a picture book.

So, of course, having made a little progress, the moment the hallucinations set in he goes and ruins it by trying to kill her.

…...

He is confused when he wakes up. He cannot quite square his fuzzy memories of threatening Clarke's life with the way they lie so close together, legs entwined as he thinks their lives will always be entwined, hands between them so that, if he squints, he can almost believe that they fell asleep holding on to one another.

Of course, this is all absolute rubbish.

He realises that the moment he sees the look in her eyes. She must have knocked him out, somehow, found a way to save herself from the monster that hides inside of him. He'll never be able to keep the monstrous part of himself concealed, now, it seems, as she scoots away from him with fear still fresh in her eyes, breath coming in horrified pants, hauls herself to her feet, and backs away from him as fast as her legs will carry her.

"Leave her." Abby instructs him, reaching out a hand to stop him where he has already made a start on sitting up. "Give her some space. She'll come back to you."

"Not this time." He tells her, his raw emotions making him open up to her rather more than he normally would. "You don't know what I've done."

"I don't think it takes a genius to work it out, Bellamy." She gestures to the knife he was holding, dropped a short distance away, and the grenade of sleeping gas Clarke must have used. "We know about the hallucinations. You can't blame yourself for them, and she won't either." He's actually beginning to think he could blame himself for anything, by now, if he tried hard enough.

He shakes his head, not feeling like any of the words swimming through his head are worth sharing, and Abby takes it as an invitation to continue.

"She'll forgive you." She says firmly, as if she has read his mind. "She always does."

With that she stands and goes to follow her daughter. She's still breathing, thank goodness, but no thanks to him.

…...

He expects it to be easy to apologise to Murphy. For all that they've had their share of ups and downs, his relationship with that man has always been pretty straightforward. When they're trying to kill each other, they don't get on. When they're on the same side, they're fine.

"Murphy?" He approaches him as he leaves the house where Abby has been attending to his wounds. "I'm sorry. I can barely remember half of what I did but – that half's bad enough. I'm so sorry."

"We're good, Bellamy." The other man shrugs easily and he breathes a sigh of relief, thinking he has been let off the hook. He is disappointed to find that Murphy isn't done yet. "You need to fix things with Clarke, though."

"What?" He finds himself rather confused at the idea that _John Murphy_ is suddenly preaching at him about how to behave towards _Clarke_. He's sure he didn't imagine all the hostility between them yesterday.

"When I found her, during her hallucination, she was holding a knife to her own throat, Bellamy." He feels the breath sucked out of his lungs at that completely horrific revelation. "I really thought she was going to do it. Heaven knows we're not the best of friends but – she's supposed to _survive_."

"Damn right she is." He agrees fiercely. She will survive. He will make sure of it.

"You know what snapped her out of it?" Murphy continues in that voice that always seems to indicate he's _probing_ somewhere he shouldn't. "I told her we needed to go save you. She didn't hesitate after that."

"I don't know how to fix this." He shrugs, utterly at a loss and rather too overwhelmed to care that _Murphy_ is probably the last person he should be having this conversation with.

"Well, you'll probably get further by finding her than standing here talking to me. A useful tip – Emori and I waited until we were in the middle of a battle to remember we loved each other. Try to avoid that."

…...

He finds her looking out over the lake, her mother by her side, the two of them shrouded in silence so heavy he thinks he can feel it thickening in his lungs and threatening to choke him. Abby takes one look at the expression on his face and excuses herself without even bothering to pretend she has a destination in mind. He settles himself on the bench she has so recently vacated and wonders where to begin.

"I'm sorry, I don't quite remember everything that happened. Of course, that's not really what I'm sorry for. I'm sorry for waving a knife at you and trying to throttle you and all the other things I don't even know I did."

He pauses to give her the opportunity to acknowledge his apology. She does not choose to do so.

"It's a blur, really, but some things stand out. Murphy trying to talk me down, telling me that this place is _filled with man-eating bugs and toxic plants that turn people who love each other into homicidal maniacs. _He was right. I don't want you dead any more than Emori wants Murphy dead or Jackson wants to stab Miller or Emori wants to torment Echo. You have to know that." He feels his voice break but keeps his gaze fixed on the water before him, not feeling brave enough to turn and seek out her eyes. "That wasn't me. I promise that wasn't me." _He_ sounds a little pathetic now, he thinks, as he begs her to understand.

"I know it wasn't." She doesn't sound warm or understanding, though, not like he might have hoped. She sounds only incredibly weary.

"I remember telling you a lie, too. I remember saying I didn't need you any more, and that's not true, Clarke. I – I will always need you, I think." That seems to get through to her, at last, based on the sharp intake of breath he hears beside him.

"I think I need you, too." She tells him, and he knows her well enough to be able to hear that she is holding back tears as she says it.

Emboldened by her words, he reaches an arm around her shoulders. She stiffens for a moment and he wonders if he has made a horrific mistake, but then she lets out a sigh and leans into him just a little. He wonders if this might be a good moment for more words, for telling her that he'll never leave her again, that he will always be there for her when she needs him. But he's scared of saying the wrong thing, so instead he embraces this rather more relaxed silence and feels his breathing keep time with her own.

…...

Life interrupts, as it always seems to between them. There is a conversation to be had, a mission to be undertaken, a dinner to be eaten. He's pleased, at least, that he manages to speak up and remind everyone that she's their leader. She needs to know that he believes in her. But he's far from pleased to be leaving her, here, amongst hostiles, while he goes out to the transport ship. He wants to stay by her side, go to this meeting with her, and remember the days when they were a team and led their people together. He wants to find another moment to sit and look out over a lake with an arm around her shoulders. He wants, above all things, dinner and a beautiful Clarke in a red dress and something approaching a quiet life.

But he knows that, if there is a route to any of these things, it is by going to fetch Madi back to her that he will find it.

…...

He wonders if, perhaps, Clarke might be able to hear his thoughts, sense somehow that she is on his mind, as she looks up from her lantern-tying and meets his eye. He offers her a small smile, and is half way through forming the idea that he might try his hand at going over there and starting a conversation when he realises that, in fact, she has beaten him to it.

"Apparently the lanterns float away, taking your sins with them." She tells him on arrival by his shoulder.

"If only it were that easy." He says, heart heavy with all the sins he has committed against her and wishes he could discard so carelessly.

"Maybe it is." She suggests, and he smiles weakly at the cheerful naivety in her voice. "I wrote down leaving you in Polis." She says, eyes downcast, voice trembling.

"Clarke, stop." He tells her gently, and wonders about reaching out to her. "You don't need to do this."

"What I did, leaving you like that. I'm so sorry Bellamy ."

"It's OK." He tells her, because it is. He's left her under worse circumstances, after all. "I know what it's like to risk everything for one person. I know Madi's your family."

"You're my family too." She tells him softly, finally seeming to convince herself to look him in the eye. "I lost sight of that. But I promise I will never forget it again. You're too important to me."

There is only one good answer to that, he decides, as he wraps her in a hug that, he hopes, says everything he can't quite find the words to even attempt to convey, and murmurs her name into her hair.

"You going to try it?" She asks with a gesture at the lanterns when he reluctantly pulls away.

"Too many sins." He tells her the honest truth, hoping she can hear the apology in his words. "That lantern wouldn't float."

"Octavia?" She asks, a little too perceptive as always.

"And you. Leaving you behind for all those years. Giving up on you and falling in love with someone else. Betraying your trust and putting the flame in Madi. Trying to kill you only yesterday." It isn't until he gets to the end of his rather too long list that he realises that, somewhere along the line, her hand has come to rest in his, their fingers wrapped tightly together. He sucks in a breath and wonders what happens next.

"You're forgiven." She whispers into the slither of air between them as she leans her head against his chest. "I think that, perhaps, forgiveness is what we do best."

It isn't until later, when she disappears to get changed for the party and he is rerunning their conversation in his mind, that he realises the implication of _giving up on you and falling in love with someone else_. And it isn't until he sees the look in her eyes when she notices him noticing her in her beautiful blue dress that he begins to hope that, maybe, she realises it too, and perhaps she doesn't mind too much.

…...

Bellamy is not enjoying the party. It's the first one he's been to since his sister got arrested, which doesn't exactly help, and then there's the not insignificant fact that Clarke is currently dancing with that good-looking doctor who's been hovering around her since they got here. And not just dancing, oh no, but moving so closely against him, back pressed to his front, that he can scarcely see where one body ends and the next begins. Sourly he finds himself thinking that they're probably finding it only too easy to enjoy each other's company, with clever medical conversations to have and without a history of impossible only choices and six years and over a century standing between them. He should leave, he thinks. He should leave her to her handsome doctor and go stew in his worry about his sister away from all this _happiness._

For the first time in one hundred and thirty one years, however, he disregards what he thought was her last wish and acts entirely from the heart. He does not even pause to consider the situation logically as some primal possessiveness sends him fighting through to the middle of the crowd, elbowing aside disgruntled partygoers, to arrive at Clarke's side.

"I believe I owe you a drink." He says and waits, heart in his mouth, for her to laugh in his face, reject him and send him on his way.

Instead, a slow grin spreads as far as her cheeks as she looks up at him. "I believe you do."

She leads the way towards the bar, barely throwing an apologetic glance at her former partner as she does so, and he makes haste to follow her. Now that he's finished acting impulsively, though, he has to admit the atmosphere of the party is getting a bit much for him. This crush of bodies, the waving limbs, the pounding music, it all reminds him too much of the night they took his sister away from him. The same sister who is now out there, alone, thanks to his actions.

"Bellamy? What's wrong?" It's only when he hears her voice, yelling next to his ear to be heard over the music, that he realises he has stopped in the middle of the dancefloor.

"Last time I was at a party my sister was arrested." He tells her, voice not as loud as it needs to be, but all the same it seems she gets the picture as she reaches out and wraps her hand around his.

"Of course. I'm sorry, I never thought of that. We can go look for her, bring her back, if you need to?"

"No." He shakes his head firmly. It is time to look to the future, not the past. "Let's go get that drink."

They sip at their first drinks mostly in a silence which he thinks is more comfortable than awkward. He can only hope that she agrees with his assessment, he muses, as he swallows the sugary cocktail and watches her watching the dancefloor. She's not likely to want to sit with him all night at this rate. He's going to need to be better entertainment than this or she's sure to return to her handsome new friend.

"I think I preferred Monty and Jasper's moonshine." She tells him as she draws near to the end of her glass.

"Yes." He agrees. "This stuff is definitely a bit different."

"I'm going to go see if they have anything less _sweet_." She says with a grimace. "Do you want another?"

"I don't really want another one of these." She giggles at that, as he intended she should. "I'll have whatever you're having."

The conversation flows more freely after that, about how they miss Monty and Jasper for reasons other than their brewing expertise, about how lovely it is to see Jackson and Miller dancing without the weight of the world on their shoulders, about the idea that Madi might be able to go to school soon. He's staring at the bottom of his glass by the time he takes a deep breath and summons a very particular courage.

"Do you want to dance?" He asks her, eyes fixed still on his empty tumbler, fists clenched with the tension of waiting for her dismissal, for _with Cillian, not with you_.

"Yes." She says instead, and he looks up in shock just in time to catch the breathtaking smile that steals over her face.

"Yes?"

"Yes. Come on." With that, she grabs his hand and drags him into the crowd.

He's not sure what to expect from dancing with Clarke, really. When he does allow himself to daydream about their future together, about their reconciliation, he dreams of emotional closeness and significant conversations, not of physical proximity and the senseless entwining of limbs. Ill-prepared as he is, he loses his wits the moment she presses her back up against him and starts swaying her hips, sending shivers of pleasure down his spine. Everything he can hear and feel and smell and _taste _is Clarke, her laugh in his ears, her skin against his, her hair in his mouth as she moves with the music, and it's driving him to the brink of sanity.

But even now, through the fog of stunned desire, he knows that he craves more than this from her. He doesn't just want her body. He wants her heart. And he wants to be able to hold her in his arms and show her how much she means to him. So it is that, as soon as he hears the music slow, he spins her around and pulls her against him, chest to chest, her head tucked into his collarbone. She's never been slow on the uptake, his Clarke, so she rearranges herself a bit, and wraps her arms around his neck, and holds him, forgoing any pretence at moving with the music in favour of standing with her chest rising and falling in time with his own. He circles his hand over the small of her back, and she toys with the ends of his hair at the nape of his neck, and before he has chance to overthink it he finds that he has pressed a lingering kiss to the crown of her head.

She looks up and meets his eyes at that, and he wonders for a brief moment if he has pushed her too far, but there is no anger in her gaze. There is only courage, and tenderness, and at least a little joy.

_I love you_. The words course through his mind, loud and plain and undeniable, forming on the tip of his tongue. _I love you. I love you._ "I -"

"Excuse me." Of course, he's on the verge of telling her how that sentence all those years ago was supposed to end when Russell interrupts them. "Could I borrow Clarke for a moment?"

She pauses, clearly reluctant to leave, and looks up into his eyes.

"I won't be long." She tells him, then bites her lip and seems to think a little too hard about what to say next. "Will you – will you still be here when I get back?"

"I'll be waiting for you." He tells her, hoping she can hear in his voice everything he feels about that time he _didn't_ wait for her.

He must manage it at least a little, he thinks, based on the way her hand clings to his even as she pulls away.

…...

He passes the time by sitting where they sat to drink together earlier, and reliving their dance, and waiting for her. It's more of an active waiting than he's tried before, staring at the door and counting the seconds until she reappears, because there's something he needs to tell her, and soon. When she does reappear about an hour later he feels his heart do a little hiccup, because she's still wearing that stunning dress and she's looking straight at him and he knows, in that moment, that he imagined none of their beautiful evening. And she's twirling her hair around her finger, too, and he can't quite make that out, because it doesn't seem like a very _Clarke_ thing to do. Or at least, he thinks with growing excitement, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing the recent care-worn Clarke would do. It seems like something a youthful, happy, _flirtatious_ Clarke would do. With that thought in mind, he lets his heart have its way and reaches for her with both hands, interweaving her fingers with his own. He's about to do it, about to open his mouth and tell her when, yet again, fate intervenes.

"Did you miss me?" She asks, in a voice that is decidedly _not_ Clarke's, and he feels his world crash around his shoulders.

…...

Bellamy has plenty of time to think while he lies paralysed. Time to wonder whether he should have confronted this woman who turns out to be Josephine when he first realised that she was not Clarke, time to consider how odd it is that he seems to be the only person who has even begun to notice that their leader is, quite literally, not herself today. That is a sad reflection, he muses, of just how many bridges they have all managed to burn between them in the last couple of centuries.

He welcomed the stranger wearing Clarke's skin back to the party with open arms last night – both physically and metaphorically - deciding swiftly that his only choice was to play along and see what he could find out. With every sign that something was very much amiss he felt his smile grow more forced, his dancing limbs grow stiffer, but, of course, Clarke's the only person in the universe who knows him well enough to have stood a chance of noticing, and she wasn't there. It's still not clear whether Clarke's still alive, somehow, somewhere, but he has to believe she is. As long as there's still breath in her body, he still has hope. Even if her body is currently otherwise occupied.

He followed not-Clarke around all day, finding increasingly tenuous excuses and marvelling at the unaccustomed annoyance her face displayed at his persistent presence, until she followed _him_ at last, and Murphy, and they found the vault. And it has all fallen into place quite easily since then, really. No, _easily_ isn't quite right, because this is the hardest thing he's ever had to process – and that's saying something, really, with his history – but it has, at least, not been a complicated puzzle to piece together since he has learnt what these Sanctumites do. And the moment Gaia mentioned Madi he knew it was time to act, because he could see exactly what would happen to the girl if this psychopath got her hands on another nightblood.

Obviously, _acting_ has not ended well for him, and thus he finds himself lying here and staring at that familiar face twisting in a rather _un_familiar sneer. There's something utterly heartbreaking, he notes, about the fact that he still can't help but find her at least a little bit beautiful. He supposes it's probably a good thing that he's paralysed. Otherwise, he thinks, he would be sobbing by now, but thankfully his chest is too constricted to allow him to take in enough air to do so.

Then she tells him the truth, that Clarke really is gone, that there's breath in her body but it's no longer her own, and then his heart shatters completely.

…...

The next day is half gone when Murphy shows up. Bellamy feels that he ought to at least pretend to be coherent for this conversation, but really he's too busy tearing up at seemingly random moments to pull that one off. And between that and the fact that his grief-stricken brain seems to be composed of incoherent mush, it takes him far longer than it should to realise that Murphy is out to save his own skin as usual.

Clarke _did _care about Murphy. He knows it. And it makes him hate his old friend all the more.

Hate seems to be a bit of a feature of his raging soul at the moment. Hate for Murphy, hate for the residents of Sanctum. He intends to kill the lot of them. Hate for himself, for letting her die. And on his watch, too, in those few moments when he should have been looking out for her but was too busy dreaming of the heat of her skin against his.

It serves him right, then, that he is left feeling so damn cold now. And so lonely. He's going to be lonely for the rest of his life, now, he realises. As cold and lonely as those years he spent in space, only this will never ever end.

Murphy may carry on all damn day with _if we take this deal we get everything we want_. But he's not interested. Not at all. Because he only wants Clarke.

But somehow, somewhere along the line, in complete opposition to the roaring in his ears that's urging him to slaughter every last resident of this cursed sanctuary, Murphy's message gets through. His suggestion that this is what Clarke would have wanted. That this is doing better.

And if he listens hard enough, he can hear her still, over that roaring that might as well be the world burning, telling him to use his head, too.

Telling him to look after them, for her.

…...

He wonders yet again at Echo. It is beyond his comprehension, how patiently she pieces him back together every time he loses Clarke.

It's a wretched thing to make a habit of.

But she's by his side, as soon as he closes the deal with Russell, reminding him to breath, offering a hug that keeps him grounded, somehow. Volunteering to join him in destroying them all.

He wonders what he has ever done to deserve a friend so true that she would hold him together through the death of the woman he left her for.

He wonders, too, how on Earth he is to tell Madi the bad news. He was hoping to have time to prepare, to think of the right words to use, but now the girl is making her way down the stairs and he sucks in a panicked breath.

"You can do this, Bellamy." Echo tells him what he needs to hear. "You can get her through this. For Clarke."

"Madi." He greets her, this girl who has so much of Clarke in her for all that they are unrelated by birth, and tears up all over again at the inquiring look she sends his way, that he recognises so very well.

"Bellamy."

"I have something to tell you." He kneels in front of her, wondering how to say the words, but it is obvious even as he does so that Madi knows. She knows what his tears mean.

She throws herself into his arms, and he is only too happy to catch her. He will raise this child now, and he will do so gladly. For Clarke.

"She's gone." He mutters through his tears. "I'm so sorry, Madi. She's dead. Clarke's dead." He breaks off, choking on the lump in his throat and failing completely to be the rock he told himself he would be for her.

And she's weeping too, sobbing broken sobs that go straight through him, and all he can do is hold her while they mourn together for the woman who is everything to them.

Time passes. Echo discreetly shepherds away their audience.

He pulls himself together. It's not easy, but he needs to be coherent for what follows. He can hold it in, must hold it in, taking measured breaths while he talks to this heartbroken child.

He can let it all out later, when he's alone.

"Madi. I know this is hard for you. It's hard for me too."

The girl hiccups a little by way of response.

"You'll get through this. And we'll live here, in peace. It's what Clarke would have wanted."

"How do you know that?" She asks, suddenly angry. "How do you know she wouldn't want us to kill them all?"

"Because I know Clarke." He reminds her gently. "She would have made the smart move. She was always reminding me to make the smart move, too. And taking this deal is the smart move. And I know you want to kill them all, and it's understandable that you would want revenge. But Madi, your mother wanted to do better. This is what she would want."

"I just want her back."

"I know, I know. I want her back too. And I know it's not the same, Madi. I know she was your only family for six years. But we're your family now. All of us. And... you know I loved her." He says, his voice catching on that past tense. "You must know that. So you know that I'd do anything for you, too."

"She used to talk about you all the time. About what a great father you'd be."

He takes a deep breath and forces down the tears. "Then I promise, I'll be the best father I can be."

He walks Madi back to her bedroom, and sits with her while she cries, and then tells her stories until she falls asleep. And through it all, he keeps his voice steady, takes measured breaths, stays calm for her.

And then he walks down the stairs, and out of the door. And he takes a seat on that bench where he sat only days ago to tell Clarke _he will always need her._

And it's still true, curse it. He will always need her, and she will always be _not here_.

And at this rate, it seems, as he breaks down into a new storm of sobbing, he will always be mourning her.

…...

He doesn't go to bed that night. He wonders if this is something he has in common with the woman who has taken Clarke's body, who told him so proudly that she doesn't sleep _in a new host_, at first.

He nearly vomits at the thought of having anything in common with that psychopath.

He does doze a little, it seems, as he comes round a little while before dawn, cramped and sore from nodding off whilst still crying on that loveless bench. It just feels, somehow, like the right place to be. Like as long as he stays here, he will stay close to her memory.

But he knows there are things to be done. He has made a commitment to care for Madi, and at least that should keep him distracted from his own grief. And he has a peace treaty to make, so once Madi has been left in Gaia's capable care, he sets off to the palace, to face the man who killed Clarke and the woman who's occupying her flesh.

Josephine's late. Just as well. It gives him a minute to set his shoulders back and grit his teeth. He will make it through this. For Clarke.

He sees it right away of course, the moment she enters the room, that tell-tale movement of a hand he knows almost as well as he knows his own, a hand he has held so many times, in so many situations, on the brink of falling to her death at that pit and to anchor her to life when she shut down the City of Light. He knows it as soon as he sees that her _left_ hand is moving, even before he has decoded the message, that somewhere within that familiar body beats a heart that is still undeniably Clarke's, for all that there's currently someone else in her head.

Of course, he wouldn't put it past this psychopath to be cruel enough to do something like this deliberately, just to give him false hope. But he decides to have hope anyway. After all, this Josephine may know every language under the sun, but when it comes to Clarke Griffin, she's proven herself woefully ignorant so far. He'll show this monster what it means to underestimate the woman he loves. And he'll show the woman he loves that he'll stick by her side to take on every monster she could ever face. And he'll get her back, and he'll tell her how the most long-drawn-out sentence in human history ends.

And one day, perhaps, she won't just be breathing – she'll be living.

…...

Hope is all very well, but they need a plan. He wants so badly to rush in there and kill the father and carry Clarke off to safety, but if his hot-headedness gets her mind erased, he knows he will never forgive himself. He hates trusting her fate to others, is desperate to make a start and ease this nervous churning of his stomach, but he knows Raven will be of much more use here than he will.

And Raven isn't here, so it seems he is in for a few more sleepless nights.

Madi, too, is restless to be getting on with it, and because she's an anxious child with a chip in her head she makes no secret of it. She is angry, and scared, and she is full of dangerous schemes.

"We mustn't kill them all, Madi." He says softly. "Remember what I said about doing better?"

"I just want her back."

"I know. I know. We'll get her back. I won't stop until we do."

"You promise?"

"I promise." He sighs deeply and decides it is time to share a story with the girl. "What did she tell you about Praimfaiya? About the day I left her?"

"Not much. Only that she wanted you to leave, and that you'd be back one day."

"She asked me something important before – before I left. She asked me, if ever we got separated, to use my head as well as my heart. To think things through, like she would, not just to rush into trouble when I was angry or grieving. I think you're a lot like me, Madi. I think that's maybe why we both love Clarke so much. And I think, if she could, she'd ask you the same thing."

Madi sits for a while, staring at nothing, a couple of stray tears trickling down her cheeks.

"OK." She says quietly. "Clarke trusts you. So I should too."

…...

He is suspicious of Emori's motives in asking for the shock collar, to say the least. And if he is prepared to take on the universe to get Clarke back – well then, he can certainly take on his old friend.

"What do you really need it for, Emori?"

"The circuitry will be useful in building our radiation shield."

"That's not the real reason, is it?" He may be no engineer, but he knows that something fishy is going on here, between Murphy trying to help out Josephine and now Emori asking favours.

She meets his gaze for a long moment, and for the first time in as long as he has known her, this intimidating survivor looks unsure.

"No. I – Bellamy – Clarke. She's -"

"I know."

"Why didn't you tell me?" He doesn't need to answer. They both know that her lover is a liability.

"Never mind. What are you doing about it?"

"We need Raven. When she gets back -"

"You don't have time to wait for Raven, Bellamy. They're wiping her today."

And, of course, as he stands their gaping and wondering why the universe refuses to let him hold onto hope for longer than a day at a time, Echo appears to pull him together.

"I take it it's go time?" She asks, devoted to the cause as ever.

"Yeah. We need a plan to get Clarke now. Something other than killing them. I'll ask Gaia to stay with Madi."

…...

He would like to punch Josephine in the face. But of course, it's _Clarke's _face so that's not really an option.

And besides which, he is supposed to be practising a little self-control.

But the woman just won't stop using Clarke's beautiful lips to give shape to these ridiculous strings of excuses and negativity and fear-mongering and everything that is about as unClarke as words can get. And he's had enough of it. And as she stands there with her knife to Murphy's throat he's beginning to think that she ought to just get on with it and put everyone out of their misery.

Maybe while she's preoccupied with stabbing that cockroach who betrayed Clarke he'll be able to grab her and get her through the shield.

But then, thank goodness, something gives, as the reinforcements from Sanctum come driving towards them, and suddenly there is a mess of limbs and screams and Murphy is down and Emori is with him and somehow, between them, he and Echo have restrained Josephine, who is panting with displeasure and huffing out assorted curses on them both.

And then the radiation shield is down, and he knows it is his time to make a move, but he finds himself a little distracted by the way that Clarke's body is trying to obstruct his mission to save Clarke's mind, as Josephine drags her feet and tries to make them fall into the dust.

"You take Clarke. I'll stay and keep the others safe." Echo instructs him briskly, breaking him out of his confusion, and he counts his lucky stars yet again that she carries her loyalty to such extremes. "When the ship gets back, we'll find you."

And with that, he is on the run, in the company of both the woman he loves and the parasite he hates with all his heart. And they're still breathing, all three of them – or rather, both of them – and as the sirens of Sanctum fade into the distance, he can't help but feel a little hope.

…...

That hope lasts even through Josephine's attempts to wear him down, because somehow, he knows that she's only saying these things because she's scared, because she's hoping to break him and force a mistake.

He doesn't make mistakes when Clarke's life is on the line.

At least, he hopes he doesn't. He knows a brief moment of fear when the Children of Gabriel have a sword to her throat, but he knows he's holding the trump card. He knows they won't miss the chance to hear what he has to say.

And then they are gone, off to fetch the Old Man, and he is left with only his least favourite body snatcher for company. Before he can quite work out why it has happened he finds that they are engrossed in a surprisingly personal conversation. It's because he's using his head, he reminds himself. He might learn something of use, something to help him save Clarke. It's definitely not at all because she still looks like the woman he loves.

"What's the deal with you two?" He asks, thinking that their story of centuries-old love and crossed wires sounds not so unlike his own. And he doesn't want to have any common ground with this murderer but – well – he might as well ask.

"What? Are we gonna be friends now?"

"Doubtful."

"I've been in love with Gabriel for two hundred and thirty six years, the last seventy of which he's been trying to kill me. You know, relationships." He's briefly impressed by that, because that's over a century longer than he's been in love with Clarke, and he thought that was something of a record.

But it doesn't last long, because her hand is moving once again, and he's desperate to know what Clarke wants to say to him. _Boohoo_, he deciphers, and he almost chuckles in spite of the situation. He realises, though, that her sarcasm can mean only one thing.

"She can hear us?"

"It would seem so. Which means the wall separating our minds is almost gone. When that happens, she'll stroke out, I'll download, and you can say goodbye to your genocidal friend."

"Let me talk to her." He needs to speak to her. He has a sentence to finish, after all.

"I've got to give over control for that. So no."

"But she can hear me?"

"Yes, she can hear you. For God's sake, just say what you want to say."

He tries to. He really does. He takes a deep breath, fills his lungs, parts his lips to shape the words.

"I – I -"

He's looking into her eyes, and it's too much like looking Clarke in the eye, but the smile is all wrong and he can't get the words out.

"I need you."

He turns away, disappointed in himself, and slumps against the wall.

…...

He should have known Clarke would win through, sometime, somehow. She always does. Isn't that the moral of their story? Isn't that what he learnt, from leaving her for dead on a burning planet, only to find that she was, miraculously, still breathing after all?

So it is that, when she takes back control of her body to slaughter the guards and free herself he is hardly even _surprised_. No, he's just overjoyed, relieved, thoroughly happy. He doesn't think he's ever smiled so wide at Clarke killing people, before.

"You're back." He notes, ecstatic beyond belief, because there is no other explanation for the way she wrested back control of the situation and went on a lethal rampage _left-handed_.

"Yeah."

"She gave you control?"

"It was either that or get her head cut off." Clarke points out lightly as she grabs the keys and goes to start work on freeing him.

"No." He stops her, wrapping her hands in his own despite the chains. "We don't have time. I want you to run."

"No. I'm not leaving you. Not again." She insists vehemently even as he hears voices approaching.

"Clarke. Please. I need you _alive_. Go find Gabriel."

"No. I can't leave you." She's shaking her head, tears brimming in her eyes, begging him to understand, begging him not to make her do this.

The voices are growing closer now, and their time is up.

"Go, now." His voice is firm, but the kiss he presses briefly to her forehead is gentle. "We _will _meet again. I promise."

He can see it in her eyes, that this is the most difficult thing he has ever asked of her, but she does it. She runs out of the cave, just as her pursuers round the corner, and for a moment his breath hitches in his throat with panic.

But he forces himself to stay calm, to inhale deeply, to think about how he's going to take out these guards. There is no need to worry about Clarke, on some level he knows this. He's had too little faith in her ability to keep breathing before. He won't make the same mistake again.

After all, he doesn't make mistakes when Clarke's life is on the line.

…...

He's killed guards before, has impersonated them to save his people, so it's no great challenge to him on this occasion, as he knocks out one of incompetent Jade's incompetent companions, dresses himself in his uniform, and has caught back up to the group before the woman who's supposed to be locating Josephine seems to have noticed that anything is amiss. And, well, shooting people to protect Clarke – that's hardly anything new. It comes quite naturally to him

It comes rather less naturally to him to be still and watch while Gabriel preps her for surgery. And it is certainly not easy to stand idly by while that murderer tries to talk her way out of death. He is itching to be doing something, anything, to get on with saving the woman he loves even while he watches her brain fry on the monitor before him. And yet, at the same time, he can't help but feel that this is all moving too quickly, that he's not ready, not yet, for Clarke to stop breathing, her heart to stop beating, even if that is the only way of saving her.

He watches Gabriel fail to restart her heart as if from some great distance, through a frosted window, as if not really there. Because he can't be here, not if she's dead. He can't be anywhere that she's not. Not ever again. And so, he realises very abruptly, he will have to do something about this. He will have to be the one to remind her how to breathe.

He has been keeping her alive for as long as her remembers. Surely, then, he can bring her back to life now.

His sister is trying to console him, to convince him that she is gone, but he's not interested. Clarke wouldn't just _go_, wouldn't leave him like this. _Going _is not what they do, not any more.

"Bell, I'm sorry. She's gone." His sister's hand is on his shoulder but he shrugs her away.

"She can't be." He pants in between sobs and chest compressions, an odd storm of mourning and desperate hope. He's got himself convinced that, somehow, as long as he still has hope she's bound to start breathing eventually. "She can't. I have to tell her -"

He breaks off as she gasps for air, her chest rising and falling again as it should, and he's whispering to her to _breathe, just breathe _and, somehow, at last, she is doing exactly that.

He can barely see her lips move through the tears clouding his eyes but he hears her first words all the same.

"I love you." She breathes, barely a whisper, and maybe he should act with more caution when she's so recently returned from the brink of death but he's always let his heart rule his head where she is concerned. So he presses his lips to hers, and before she's had time to gasp in surprise he's deepening the kiss, tasting those precious words on the tip of her tongue, inhaling her confession as her breath mingles with his.

He pulls away eventually, seconds or days or centuries later, and holds her against his heaving chest.

"I love you, too. That's what I was trying -"

"I know. I'm sorry it took dying for me to work it out."

"To be fair, I only realised it when the world was ending."

"The first time or the second?" She asks and he drops a kiss to her forehead in response, not quite sure how to go about explaining that the answer is a little bit of both.

"The first, to begin with." He opts for in the end even as she snuggles deeper into his chest.

"We're dreadful at this." She tells him with a wry laugh.

"Absolutely." He agrees easily. "But I think maybe we'll work it out, now. Finally. I'm optimistic."

"You still have hope?"

"We're still breathing, aren't we?"

**a/n Thanks for reading!**


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